Conventional electrostatographic toner powders are made up of a binder polymer and other ingredients, such as pigment and a charge control agent, that are melt blended on a heated roll or in an extruder. The resulting solidified blend is then ground or pulverized to form a powder. Inherent in this conventional process are certain drawbacks. For example, the binder polymer must be brittle to facilitate grinding. Improved grinding can be achieved at lower molecular weight of the polymeric binder. However, low molecular weight binders have several disadvantages; they tend to form toner/developer flakes; they promote scumming of the carrier particles that are admixed with the toner powder for electrophotographic developer compositions; their low melt elasticity increases the off-set of toner to the hot fuser rollers of the electrophotographic copying apparatus, and the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the binder polymer is difficult to control. In addition, grinding of the polymer results in a wide particle size distribution. Consequently, the yield of useful toner is lower and manufacturing cost is higher. Also the toner fines accumulate in the developer station of the copying apparatus and adversely affect the developer life.
The preparation of toner polymer powders from a preformed polymer by the chemically prepared toner process such as the “evaporative limited coalescence” (ELC) offers many advantages over the conventional grinding method of producing toner particles. In this process, polymer particles having a narrow size distribution are obtained by forming a solution of a polymer in a solvent that is immiscible with water, dispersing, under suitable shear and mixing conditions, the solution so formed in an aqueous medium containing a solid colloidal stabilizer and removing the solvent. The resultant particles are then isolated, washed and dried.
In the practice of this technique, polymer particles are prepared from any type of polymer that is soluble in a solvent that is immiscible with water. Thus, the size and size distribution of the resulting particles can be predetermined and controlled by the relative quantities of the particular polymer employed, the solvent, the quantity and size of the water insoluble solid particulate suspension stabilizer, typically silica or latex, and the size to which the solvent-polymer droplets are reduced by mechanical flowing and shearing using rotor-stator type colloid mills, high pressure homogenizers, agitation etc.
Limited coalescence techniques of this type have been described in numerous patents pertaining to the preparation of electrostatic toner particles because such techniques typically result in the formation of polymer particles having a substantially uniform size distribution. Representative limited coalescence processes employed in toner preparation are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,833,060, 4,965,131, 6,544,705, 6,682,866, and 6,800,412; and U.S. Patents Application No. 2004/0161687, incorporated herein by reference for all that they contain.
This technique generally includes the following steps: mixing a polymer material, a solvent and optionally additionally one or more of a colorant, a charge control agent and a wax to form an organic phase; dispersing the organic phase in an aqueous phase comprising a particulate stabilizer and homogenizing the mixture; evaporating the solvent and washing and drying the resultant product.
There is a need to reduce the amount of toner applied to a substrate in the electrophotographic process (EP). Porous toner particles in the electrophotographic process can potentially reduce the toner mass in the image area. Simplistically, a toner particle with 50% porosity should require only half as much mass to accomplish the same imaging results. Hence, toner particles having an elevated porosity will lower the cost per page and decrease the stack height of the print as well. The application of porous toners provides a practical approach to reduce the cost of the print and improve the print quality.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,923,704; 4,339,237; 4,461,849; 4,489,174 and EP 0083188 discuss the preparation of multiple emulsions by mixing a first emulsion in a second aqueous phase to form polymer beads. These processes produce polymer particles having a large size distribution with little control over the porosity. This is not suitable for toner particle.
US 2005/0026064 describes porous toner particles apparently obtained through a degassing reactive process. However control of particle size distribution along with the even distribution of pores throughout the particle is a problem.
US 2008/0176164 and US 2008/0176157 describe porous polymer particles that are made by a multiple emulsion process, that in one phase of the process results in formation of individual porous particles comprising a continuous polymer phase and internal pores containing an internal aqueous phase, where such individual particles are dispersed in an external aqueous phase. The particles are typically washed with water to remove stabilizers and salts from the external water phase, used in the preparation of the particles. The particles are typically isolated from the dispersion by a filtration process.